Monday, August 25, 2014

Eat. Eat well and often.

I’ve learned not to underestimate the value of a good
meal anymore.

Since upping my mileage (initially, at least), I found
myself lagging in energy. So much so, that it concerned me quite a bit. Had I signed
up for my current hunnerd too soon? Was I pushing so hard that my body couldn’t
keep up? Was I too old to try to run what I want to run?

I think the problem was something so simple that I overlooked.

I’ve never been much of an eater, but my routine used to be:

·No breakfast

·Lunch

·Workout

·Dinner

...and work, of course.

The funny thing is that I didn’t change it because I thought
it would help with my lack of energy/running. Instead, I changed it because it started getting too late to eat by the time I'd get home after my workouts.

My routine now is very simple…if I’m hungry, I eat, and it has made all the difference in the world. After changing my eating habits by eating when hungry, I've had a lot more energy. I've even been able to do back to back 2-a-day workouts while going at it hard, and even doing crazy mileage on back to back days. This was unheard of for me.

I thought about this yesterday that I had 6 meals. Yes, 6. This might be an exceptionally high amount because I'd run 25 miles the day before. Normally, I've noticed that I'll just eat about 4...or so. That's not including snacking, of course, 'cause there's gotta be snacks.

So, my advice to those running/working out: Eat. Eat well and often. You just might notice a big change.

Hola and welcome to the (mis) adventures of a (wannabe) ultra runner. Who am I? Running is a part of who I am. I run to get on grip on life, work, people & why they do what they do. Most importantly, I love the feeling of complete physical exhaustion. You could say I’m obsessed with everything running & you might be too (to an extent) if you are here.

During the day, I am a Middle School Special Education Teacher and Coach Cross Country and/or Track. The best part of my day is that I get to run with speedy 7th or 8th graders. Somebody’s gotta supervise from the back of the pack.

I hope you enjoy reading this but if you don’t, that’s ok too. Let me warn you that there will be typos and/or grammatical errors since I’m doing this quickly, randomly and probably in the middle of the night/early morning during my bouts with insomnia.